More on my fiction writing

April 27, 2015

Phoenix 101: American Eden

Agriculture is the oldest organized human activity in the Salt River Valley. This is why Phoenix was never a Wild West town like Tombstone or even Prescott. It was never a copper square.

For hundreds of years this sustained the Hohokam, who created the most advanced irrigation civilization in the New World. They built hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles of canals to bring water from the Salt River to their fields. After the Hohokam left in circumstances that are still debated, the valley lay empty for 400 years. Waiting.

Jack Swilling may get too much credit among the founders of Phoenix. But one thing that's certain is this soldier of fortune immediately grasped the valley's agricultural potential when he arrived after the Civil War to help John Y.T. Smith farm hay for the Army at Fort McDowell.

He saw the Hohokam canals, the seemingly flat ground and rich earth, and knew it was farming country. In some cases, old Hohokam canals were simply cleaned out by the Swilling Irrigating Canal Co. His passion in selling what "Lord" Duppa would aptly name Phoenix attracted men from Wickenburg and Prescott. Swilling's Ditch was built in 1868 from today's 40th Street and ran west beside Van Buren Street.

No other place in the West between the 100th meridian and California and the Pacific Northwest was so hospitable to farming. Three rivers met here and the soil was alluvial and priceless. Unlike the future Dustbowl, with its shallow topsoil and dependency on fickle rainfall, the Salt River Valley alone had almost all the makings of a major agricultural empire.

By 1870, 200 Anglo settlers had arrived and laid out the townsite, land was platted from the Gila and Salt River Baseline and Meridian, and more ditches were dug. Wheat and grains were the early crops. Former Union officer William John Murphy led building of the 41-mile Arizona Canal between 1883 and 1885. In the late part of that decade, the Rev. Winfield Scott, an Army chaplain, acquired 640 acres. With his brother George, he planted the first citrus trees, along with growing dates and figs and other tree crops.

An 1892 map of the Salt River Valley showing the Salt River, canals, and towns.

II.

By 1890, more than 125,000 acres were under cultivation. The ability to move crops beyond the territory grew exponentially with the arrival of a branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1887 and the Santa Fe Railway in 1895. The railroads led an aggressive promotion of the region to potential settlers and capitalists back east.

The valley went by many names, "Garden Spot of the Territory," "Grain Emporium of Arizona," "the American Nile," and "the American Eden."

As Bradford Luckingham points out in his Phoenix history, the Desert Land Act of 1877 further enhanced the area's appeal by expanding the acreage allowed under the Homestead Act from 160 to 640. In reality, land and water rights proved problematic and a source of dispute for decades.

What was undeniable was that the settlers had achieved an astonishing rebirth of this Eden. The Hohokam would recognize its backbone: canals taking advantage of gravity. But there were also the beginnings of more sophisticated delivery, including the "laterals," ditches that that ran every mile north and south from the larger feeder canals. Veins carrying lifeblood. Below is an 1893 U.S. Geological Survey photograph of where the Crosscut Canal met the Arizona Canal. All around are fields:

The alluvial soil would grow almost anything provided water was available. For example, the photo at the top of this column shows grape vinyards with Camelback Mountain in the background. Wheat, barley, oats, and alfalfa were early practical and profitable crops. Farmers grew vegetables and fruits for their own consumption and then to sell. Beet fields spread out from Glendale. Cotton would prove especially influential.

An 1881 report to the territorial Legislature in Prescott said that it:

...produces the finest vegetables in the Territory. Pumpkins, squashes, onions, turnips, cabbages, watermelons, and everything in the vegetable line, are raised in large quantities, and are in market by the first of March.

The soil is peculiarly adapted to the raising of sugarcane, and some of the stalks attain a height of over twelve feet. It has been estimated that an acre of this cane will yield 200 gallons of syrup, of an excellent quality; it also makes a nutritious food for horses and stock. There are about 1,000 acres of this valuable plant now under cultivation, and the area is being steadily increased, many farmers finding it more profitable than the raising of grain.

III.

Yet the settlers encountered the Hohokam's nemeses, drought and floods. The 1890s, when my family arrived, proved especially disastrous. First came the February 1891 flood, which not only destroyed canals but also crops. It was followed by years of drought. Many farmers gave up. Still, the canals were repaired and new crops planted. The county's population doubled, to more than 20,000.

The Americans had technological magic that their predecessors lacked. Even before the turn of the century, John R. Norton, William Breckenridge and James McClintock identified a canyon in the Tonto Basin 80 miles northeast of Phoenix as the ideal place for a modern dam.

In 1902, the Newlands Act was passed, providing federal money for reclamation. The first project was the dam on the Salt River, named after the president who championed and signed the bill. Theodore Roosevelt Dam was built between 1905 and 1911. It remains the world's highest masonry dam.

Thus began the Salt River Project. Valley farmers famously used their land as collateral, forming the Salt River Valley Water Users Association, to qualify for the federal loans under the Newlands Act. Other dams on the Salt and Verde rivers followed, ending the worst of the flooding and ensuring the valley with a stable, year-round supply of water as well as cheap hydropower. That electricity allowed for pumping stations that made the irrigation system much more efficient.

This success led Arizona into a long fight to win the federally funded Central Arizona Project. Throughout the legislative and court fights, the CAP was sold as essential to maintaining and expanding agriculture — not as a way to bring 4 million people to the valley with the nation's sixth most populous city.

These water projects represent among the grandest engineering achievements in American history.

The Newlands Act also began the most widespread attempt at "socialism" and overt "central planning" in the nation's experience. Leaders in Washington hoped reclamation in the Salt River Valley would draw people from the eastern cities — and not coincidentally defuse the rise of a dangerous industrial proletariat — and make them into Jeffersonian yeoman farmers.

Another technological breakthrough was the refrigerated railroad boxcar, originally kept cold by ice blocks stuffed into bunkers of the cars. This allowed Phoenix produce to be sent across the nation. With the completion of the Southern Pacific's Northern Main Line through the city in 1926, agriculture vied with copper as Arizona's most valuable export. Long trains filled with citrus, lettuce, cabbage, and other farm products were loaded in the city — especially in the Produce District downtown — iced at giant ice houses beside the tracks, and dispatched on the SP and the Santa Fe. SP's Pacific Fruit Express, run jointly with the Union Pacific, was an especially powerful player in extending markets for Salt River Valley farmers.

In addition to planting and harvesting, agriculture created what economists now call an "ecosystem" centered on Phoenix, with seed companies and other vendors, banks, insurance companies, equipment makers and sellers, and many other businesses that supported the farm economy. Closeness to feed and railroads also turned Phoenix into a major livestock center, especially with the Tovrea Stockyards, one of the largest feed lots in the world, and nearby slaughterhouses.

By the 1940s, 360,000 acres were under cultivation. This would rise to nearly 520,000 by 1959 and increase to more than 600,000 — 937 square miles — in the 1960s. Phoenix moved to the rhythms and totems of a farming region. The beloved Masque of the Yellow Moon celebration was essentially a festival to mark planting and harvest. From 1948 to 1955, a college post-season game was held at Montgomery Stadium — the Salad Bowl.

IV

The iconic Japanese Flower gardens that ran for miles along Baseline Road.

Although Phoenix grew into the territory's largest city, was named the capital in 1889, boasted the largest business, professional and retail sectors, and began marketing itself as a "health" and then tourist mecca, its economy was most dependent on agriculture for the first half of the 20th century.

Although minorities came for a variety of reasons, most were farmers or farm workers. In town, until the late 1950s, jobs in the produce sheds were among the few open to non-Anglos, aside from working the fields. African-Americans moved west from Texas to pick cotton. Japanese proved especially adept at farming in some of the microclimates of the valley where Anglos failed. Before their flower gardens became beloved, they endured racism, attacks, and, for those south of U.S. 60, internment during World War II.

Whatever the skin color of the farmer, the work was murderously demanding. Although the dam system saved Phoenix farmers from worry over rainfall, they still faced the age-old problems of the business: debt, over-supply, and changing markets. Much of the diversity of valley farms was lost in the Great War when demand soared for extra long staple cotton. This unique fiber grew well in the Nile River Valley — and in the American Nile. Soaring prices caused many farmers to switch exclusively to cotton, a practice that continued even after prices crashed in 1919. Citrus was another highly profitable crop.

By 1939, cotton accounted for nearly 27 percent of the crop acreage in Maricopa County. Citrus — grapefruit, oranges, lemons, limes and tangerines — was 5.1 percent but set to grow. The valley still accounted for a remarkable diversity of crops and more. Seen another way: In the distribution of farmland, grazing took up nearly 43 percent.

The cotton crash, Great Depression, and movement of Americans off the farm and into towns and cities dashed the hopes of Phoenix as a Jeffersonian model. Although a few smaller farmers persist to this day on the metropolitan fringes, by the 1940s a few families assembled large farms and wielded significant power. Among them, the Rousseaus, Nortons, Killians, and Corpsteins. The Goldwater and Martori families owned Arrowhead Ranch, site of a 1977 strike by migrant workers.

By the time I was a child, Phoenix had 400,000 people and a more diverse economy than today. This was a result of efforts to move beyond agriculture after World War II, recruiting "clean industry" (some of which, alas, polluted the city's aquifers). Even so, agriculture was omnipresent.

The street grid was laid out on the old laterals and square miles of farm fields, not as a result of urban planning. Old Phoenicians called avenues "laterals" long after they were absorbed into the city and given names. For example, 27th Avenue was the old Lateral 14.

The abundance of water and the rich soil made the old city an oasis, a garden city. Acreages were still widespread, including that of my great-aunt, Eula Darrow Street, a magical place of shade and memory that one reached by crossing the narrow irrigation ditch (lateral) off Seventh Avenue. Into her eighties, she would go out on Sunday night to "take her water." This legacy of flood irrigation makes the North Central district and Arcadia so inviting.

Real farms and groves were nearby, even if one lived near downtown. Phoenix got regular frosts in the winter, so propeller aircraft engines sat on poles in the groves to keep the air circulating when it was cold. Roadside stands sold citrus. A weekly trip to the Japanese Gardens for flowers was within the means of almost everyone. Railroads still hauled the valley's bounty, although in newer mechanical "reefer" cars. The Produce District was busy with commerce.

When I went to high school in Scottsdale, fields were being tilled near Coronado High. Everywhere one could find the remnants of farm houses, some impressive haciendas and others small but still upright years after they had been abandoned. By the late 1970s, despite sprawl, a person could drive for miles east of Mesa and never leave the citrus groves. For awhile longer, the city retained its pleasing bands of farms, groves, horse pastures, and finally desert:

It's almost all gone now. Most Phoenicians have no idea of what this good earth once brought forth. Yet everywhere in the old city memories can be found. Arcadia was built in citrus groves. Park Central sits on the site of the old Central Dairy. Laterals run along part of shady north Central. When you smell the citrus blossoms in late February and early March, you imbibe the enchanting scent of history. Condos on Seventh Avenue north of Glendale crowd the once-enchanting acreage of my great-aunt.

The debate over the sustainability of flood irrigation on this scale is legitimate but academic now. Someday we might need to feed ourselves and will regret paving over and polluting this rich soil. The wisdom of turning the valley into a megalopolis is examined frequently here.

So I will end on a Saturday in the mid-1960s. My mother, grandmother, and I were driving north on one of the narrow concrete rural roads that is seven lanes wide today, on one of the regular pilgrimages past the old family farmhouse, which still stood even though the land had been sold in the late 1940s.

It had been cloudy and sprinkling for most of the day, yet the sun broke through and the most vivid rainbow I have ever seen emerged. "It looks like you could touch it," my mother said. She pulled to the dirt shoulder, and, as my grandmother and I remained in the car, she stepped out and walked into the field. And into the foot of the rainbow.

Great column, Jon! It's a shame we didn't have the foresight to retain "bands" of citrus groves throughout the Valley. Those would have likely prevented the "urban heat island" effect we now experience on summer nights.

Excellent historical background, and some poignant writing, too. A fine and informative interweaving of national, regional, local, and indigenous contexts that helped explain why and how developments took the course that they did.

Interesting how much of the western settler development was made possible by the foresight of indigenous culture and by nature itself.

If the Hohokam hadn't left their extensive canal system behind, would western settlers have seen its agricultural potential so easily, or would mining have dominated the economy, changing and throttling the subsequent development and growth pattern?

Aside from the canals, the earth itself was rich from the confluence of three rivers. Geography and gravity provided energy to transport the water; and the gravity transported water formed the basis for hydroelectric energy which powered mass migration and urban growth as well as water pumps.

Those dams, too, were essential. How different things would be if the federal government had taken a traditional, conservative approach to governance. "Let the free market take care of itself. If it can't stand on its own two feet without subsidies, it's obviously not viable.". (And make no mistake about it: huge loans, unobtainable from the private sector on affordable terms, using land as collateral whose very value as offsetting collateral was contingent on the loans and subsequent development and growth, were indeed subsidies. I'd be interested in learning the length and other terms of the loans, how long it took to pay them off, and how this was done.)

The dynamic by which a few wealthy families came to dominate agriculture also deserves examination. Why leave your own land, and your own home upon it, with the means to provide your own food for yourself and your family, for a wage-slave job in town, owing rent for shelter you don't own, perhaps a couple of paltry rooms, and have the expense of food on top of that?

Most likely the usual cycle of capitalistic accumulation: wait for the inevitable crises (flood, drought, market crashes of crop values); then use control of finance to make sustaining loans unaffordable or unavailable; then buy out desperate, land rich but cash poor sellers for pennies on the dollar.

" It's a shame we didn't have the foresight to retain "bands" of citrus groves throughout the Valley. Those would have likely prevented the "urban heat island" effect we now experience on summer nights."

But why did they disappear? Lack of foresight, or the entirely predictable grasping of a "real-estate industrial complex" whose sole concern was the accumulation of ever larger wealth, not urban stewardship? Citrus groves just sit there, looking pretty, smelling great, and offering delectable food. They don't pay their way! Much better to subdivide the land into tract housing, each of whose numerous small plots (the smaller the better) provides lucrative returns.

" Thus began the Salt River Project. Valley farmers famously used their land as collateral, forming the Salt River Valley Water Users Association, to qualify for the federal loans under the Newlands Act."

Did the individual members of the Association pay back these loans from personal farming income? Or did they use their control over water rights to levy user fees for nonmembers (essentially a primitive form of taxation based on private control of public resources)? And how did this Association come to control water rights?

I was in class the other day and couldn't help but overhear two of my classmates talk about gardening. The basic sentiment they were sharing was how much they'd love to have a garden but its just "too hard to grow" here in Phoenix. I found this hysterical- I have a garden and grow all sorts of vegetables. The soil here is amazing. Funny enough these two are from out of state- California and Michigan respectively. Their chat highlights one of the many challenges to Phoenix: a populace who has absolutely no clue about the history of the city and with that, the potential of it as well. It's such a shame.
Great post Rogue! this should be required reading for everyone who moves here.

" Early in its history, Arizona adopted the doctrine of prior appropriation to govern the use of surface water. This doctrine is based on the tenet of “first in time, first in right” which means that the person who first puts the water to a beneficial use acquires a right that is better than later appropriators of the water. Prior to June 12, 1919, a person could acquire a surface water right simply by applying the water to a beneficial use and posting a notice of the appropriation at the point of diversion. On June 12, 1919, the Arizona surface water code was enacted. Now known as the Public Water Code, this law provides that a person must apply for and obtain a permit in order to appropriate surface water."

Thus it appears to me that Association members obtained their water rights simply by posting a notice on their farms. After the law was changed in 1919 (how, on what terms, and at whose behest?) those who had not staked prior claims were out of luck.

It remains to be discovered how the Association used its water rights or contingent privileges to pay off its federal loans (see my comment above), or what mechanism(s) were in fact adopted for that purpose.

@Cal: Sometimes old ideas are the best ideas. Some day you’ll open the paper to read about a fist-fight in the middle of the street over rain run-offs. An old idea in need of a come back: septic tanks?

and
re water rights
In 1963 The Supreme court ruled in favor of Arizona (over California) that The Salt-Verde-Gila watershed was exclusively Arizona’s except for a small portion that belonged to New Mexico. The one exception to the rule, said the court was when someone had water rights that predated the Colorado River Compact. Those rights had to be satisfied first, no matter what. “(Marc Reisner in Cadillac Desert).

Very nice Jon... Not sure how far afield you want to go but I thought of Pima cotton and the founding of the Goodyear/Litchfield Park company town. There's some good work being done to document the migrant workers experience there. There's also ag in the form of Tovrea and their stockyards and the milk production industry. Perhaps a different chapter. Incidentally, this winter we posted a new exhibit on ag in the Luhrs Gallery, 4th floor Hayden Library. Some very nice historic photos on display and things like jojoba....

It appears that the Salt Water Valley Water Users' Association took a long time to repay their loans, received numerous "de facto subsidies" from the federal government, and were ultimately given not only physical ownership of the canals, dams and hydroelectric facilities but also full legal rights to water and water diversion, and to all rents, income, profits, etc., from the hydroelectric projects; and the Association sold power to the Central Arizona Light and Power Company under a contract which obligated the latter to mandatory purchases for 50 years.

Thus, the Association first grabbed primitive water rights by the simple expedient of reverse expropriation (seizing private control of public resources) using Arizona's early legal principle of "prior appropriation"; their control was subsequently formalized and expanded by the federal government. The Association was subsequently given full ownership of the public dams and hydroelectric power generating facilities. Then it used its government subsidized hydroelectric power to get the state's main privately owned electric power company to buy cheap electricity. It then used profits from this, apparently, to pay back the federal loans, though actual details of the payback (if indeed it occurred) are unclear. And, of course, the rest of the profits went to the Association members in perpetuity.

From a technical report written in 1992 (see link to the full document at the end of excerpted text):

"Originally, the Reclamation Service was to bear responsibility for the operation of the reclamation projects it had built.The various water users’ associations served by the projects were to coordinate political and economic activities associated with repayment, but management of the physical plants was to remain in federal hands. After six years of ﬁghting between Reclamation and Salt River Valley Water Users Association (SRVWUA), however, Lane turned over management of the Salt River Project directly to the Water Users’ Association: a precedent that would be followed on subsequent Reclamation-sponsored projects. On September 6, 1917, the two parties executed a "Contract Between United States Government and Salt River Valley Water Users’ Association". This agreement obligated the government to turn over to and vest in the said Association, the care, operation and maintenance of the irrigation works known as the Salt River consisting generally of the Roosevelt Dam, the Granite Reef Dam, irrigation canals, laterals, ditches... [and] all water rights and franchises, and rights to the storage, diversion and use of water for irrigation or other purposes [including] water power, and power privileges, with such right of possession of all thereof. The Water Users’ Association would receive to its own use and beneﬁt, all the rents, issues, proﬁts, revenues and income, including all income from power and power privileges growing out of or arising from the operation and maintenance of the project and every part thereof by it.

"...Execution of the 1917 contract signaled the ofﬁcial completion of the Salt River Project and the begirming of repayment of the millions of dollars expended by the government during the previous ﬁfteen years. The Water Users' Association had not made a single payment to date, although its members were enjoying the benefits of the project. The signing of the contract initiated the repayment obligation. As stipulated in the contract,the Association was to pay off the $10.3 million debt through a series of annual installments (extended by Congress from the original 10 to 20 years). The Association was to repay two percent of the total loan each year (approximately $200,000) for the ﬁrst four years; the annual payment would then increase to four percent (approximately $400,000) for two years, and then level off at six percent per year (approximately $600,000) for the remainder of the loan. Although the debt represented a substantial sum for area farmers, it would have been several times greater had Reclamation not been willing to forgive years of accrued interest on the balance. Proceeds for the annual payments were to be gathered from assessments made proportionately on each of the farmers who beneﬁted from the project. The farmers’payments were to be made ostensibly from the increased proﬁts cerived as a result of additional irrigation: as long as agricultural prices remained sufﬁciently high, the farmers would have little problem in paying off the government debt.

"...Facing the prospect of default by the Water Users’ Association, the government in 1922 amended the original contract to extend the time allowed for the scheduled 1920, 1921 and 1922 installments. In the early 1920s the Association leadership began to recognize that agricultural proﬁts alone might not be enough to service the long-term debt that saddled the regional economy, despite the numerous de facto subsidies by the government. Contract extensions would forestall an economic crisis, but such repayment moratoria ultimately did nothing to alleviate the ﬁnancial difﬁculties faced by the Association. It was in this context that SRVWUA began developing plans for a vastly enlarged hydroelectric power system that would produce a new source of revenue to payoff its debt to the government... the Association touted the revenues from additional power generation as the best means to repay the staggering debt associated with the con-struction of Roosevelt Dam.

"...The critical ﬁnancial prerequisite to construction of the Stewart Mountain Dam involved a contract negotiated between the Water Users’ Association and the privately-owned Central Arizona Light and Power Company (CALAPCO) for the guaranteed purchase of power. Executed on February 8, 1928, the 50-year agreement stipulated that CALAPCO would purchase a minimum of 7000 kilowatts of electricity on a continuous basis for a minimum annual payment of $240,000 per year, to begin one year after ﬁrst delivery of power from the Stewart Mountain plant. Beyond this minimal annual payment, the energy charge would be made at a rate of eight mills (08¢) per kilowatt hour.

"The history of the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association repayments to the federal government from 1917 to 1945 is provided in the publication How Reclamation Pays: A Book of Project Repayment Histories and Payout Schedules With History of Crop Production (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947, pp.235-238. This publication also includes references to all the "Public Notices and Contracts" that had an effect on how the repayment had been handled."

That should read "Salt River Valley Water Users' Association" in the opening sentence of my comment above, not "Salt Water Valley Users' Association". Evidently I had is colloquially known as a brain fart. what

For Ruben: Can't answer the question about what happened to those fields. The likely answer is residential development. We know about jojoba from the papers of Tempe scientist Thomas Miwa, who had a lab and related business that attempted to certify true jojoba extract. Apparently there were imposters out there and no standards. Miwa viewed jojoba oil as a humane alternative to whale oil for use in cosmetics and other applications....

Re who got the money collected by the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association (SRVWUA), as I noted above:

"The Water Users’ Association would receive to its own use and benefit, all the rents, issues, profits, revenues and income, including all income from power and power privileges growing out of or arising from the operation and maintenance of the project and every part thereof by it."

The Association consisted of its individual members. So they got the money. But not all members were equal. No doubt they received a percentage of the profits (whether they were called profits, or dividends, or something else) in proportion to their investment, which means that the wealthiest received the lion's share. The Association may also have distinguished between controlling members and subsidiary members, with the latter receiving expanded water shares and free or subsidized electrical power from the hydroelectric generation, but little or no cash remuneration beyond a return with interest of their invested principal. The Association's numerous early problems (stemming in part from various agricultural crises) may well have further reduced the ranks of its members.

Exactly what organizational changes and legal developments have occurred in the intervening century is another question, but it seems sure that at least a few members became exceedingly wealthy as a result of control of the revenues from hydroelectric power sales.

I said something about the Association being given physical ownership of the facilities, in one of my comments above. That characterization was based on the following (also quoted above):

" On September 6, 1917, the two parties executed a "Contract Between United States Government and Salt River Valley Water Users’ Association". This agreement obligated the government to turn over to and vest in the said Association, the care, operation and maintenance of the irrigation works known as the Salt River consisting generally of the Roosevelt Dam, the Granite Reef Dam, irrigation canals, laterals, ditches... [and] all water rights and franchises, and rights to the storage, diversion and use of water for irrigation or other purposes [including] water power, and power privileges, with such right of possession of all thereof."

Note the phrase "with such rights of possession of all thereof". Also note the phrase "turn over to and vest in". Black's Law Dictionary defines "vested" as "...having the character and giving the rights of absolute ownership...". Of course, subsequently executed or renegotiated contracts could have changed this language.

Just stop to consider what a sweet deal this was for the 16th Territorial Governor and other founding members of the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association (SRVWUA): the federal government "loans" them the money to build a vast system of dams, etc. to assure limitless water supplies for this collection of ranchers and farmers, as well as electricity through the hydroelectric power generated by said water. Then the federal government gifts them the money to repay the loan by granting the Association full control of all revenues from hydroelectric power sales. The government might as well have handed them wheelbarrows of cash before asking to be "repaid" with a little of it.

The Association sells that electricity, not to its members, but to the Central Arizona Light and Power Company, then privately owned, which buys this cheap, government subsidized hydroelectrically generated electricity and sells it to urban households, industry and business, not at subsidized wholesale prices but at jacked up retail prices, for private profit.

What I'd like to know is how many of the Association's board members were also investors in or board members of the urban power company, CALAPCO.

I'd also like to know the behind the scenes machinations which resulted in the federal government gifting the Association with the works. Who was receiving kickbacks in exchange for supporting this looney arrangement?

I see this pattern over and over again, in the development of utilities, railroads, and contracted government services: public funds and resources used for private enrichment.

@Emil: The water aspects of organizations such as SRP are over emphasized in the public imagination. Like TVA, it’s an electric utility that has side businesses/responsibilities. The hydro-power resources of SRP are:
Roosevelt 36 MW
Horse Mesa 32
Mormon Flat 10
Stewart Mtn 13
Crosscut 3
Az. Falls .75
Sub Total 94.75 MW

But these numbers can be deceptive. There is a number known as “capacity factor”. It is related to the utilization of a resource. For example Roosevelt
36 MW * 24 hours = 864 MW-hours
But if it only runs 8 hours per day (due to water storage constraints)
36 MW * 8 hours = 288 MW-hours
Daily capacity factor = 288/864 = 0.33

A good coal or nuclear plant has a capacity factor of .95 or higher.

The hydro-power generation and water storage are somewhat in conflict with each other. You can have lots of one or lots of the other – but typically not both.

Also some of the “gravity assist” delivery benefits are reduced by power generation.

Actually, wkg, SRP as we know it today didn't exist until 1936 or later, when the Arizona Legislature created a governmental Agricultural Improvement and Power District which had the ability and political structure to issue tax free bonds for project funding.

Power generation and water storage weren't in conflict as you portray, during the early days, as indicated by the 50 year contract under which the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association (SRVWUA) required then privately owned Central Arizona Light and Power Company (CALAPCO) to buy a minimum of 7,000 kilowatts (not megawatts) of electricity from the Stewart Mountain hydroelectric facility. When the contract was signed in 1928, Arizona's urban infrastructure, which CALAPCO marketed to, was not highly developed or populated.

A kilowatt (or megawatt) is a rate of transmission of energy. The unit for the amount of energy purchased or consumed, is the "kilowatt-hour." You likely meant that the utility was required to purchase 7,000 Kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy. That is less than what an average single residence consumes annually today.